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Clever Marketing Blog

6th October 2017

This might sound like a silly remark, but it’s quite common for us to utter it. The situation goes something like this…

We’ll be talking with business owners about how things are going…

How’s your website doing?

Is it bringing in any new leads?

Are you getting much traffic?

The answer to all these questions usually leads us to look at the website in question and within just a couple of minutes there are the usual telltale signs that the website looks good and has a lot of great features and functions, but underneath the bonnet…

We’ll save these telltale signs for another blog post but first, let’s look at the whys and wherefores.

Why Didn’t They SEO Your Website?

Sometimes, a great website design is just that – a great website design. It looks good. It has the wow factor and everyone who sees it loves it. But that’s not enough. How many people are actually seeing it?

Did all the “oohs” and “aahs” come from people in your business? Did everyone who was involved in signing it off love it? Then that’s great. But if those are the only people who see your website then what’s the point?

Now the first reason you’ve got a website without any SEO functionality is that the web designers did just that – design. Web design is a sophisticated mix of art and science and specialists are very good at building good-looking websites.

But it takes the input of digital marketing specialists at the time of build to make sure that your site is created properly. If there is no SEO/SEM, no content management nor social media involvement with the design then it falls flat on its face.

Maybe the designers do not have the resource. Maybe they don’t have the skills. Well, that’s an issue because, in our opinion, every website absolutely MUST have SEO baked in from the very start.

What if they do but the client doesn’t have the budget for SEO and decided to go for the cheaper option, cutting out the SEO features and functions?

Again, there really is no excuse. If you build a site that has not been SEO’d then it will probably fail.

The old line from the film “Field of Dreams” comes to mind here…

“Build it and they will come”

Well, in our experience that isn’t the case.

If you have a website built but nobody knows it’s there, then how is anybody going to find out about it?

OK, So What Now?

It’s never too late to apply SEO techniques to your business’ website but you have been at a disadvantage having to do it so late in the game. You have probably missed an increase in traffic at the launch of your new site. When was that? Last month? Not so bad. Last year? Oh, that’s not good. A few years ago? OK, now that’s a problem.

But don’t worry.

SEO is best talked about and integrated during the website conceptualisation and build phase and, if you’re lucky, it can still be fully applied at this late stage.

However, be aware that some things cannot be undone or fixed immediately. For instance, you could be on the “wrong” Content Management System (CMS), have the “incorrect” templates or be held back by the fact that the e-commerce plugin is not the most SEO-friendly or customisable one.

Also, your information architecture might be a bit of a mess, your content might be a bit “thin” and the supporting social media structures could be somewhat flimsy if not non-existent.

But again, don’t worry.

As a digital marketing agency with a great many years of experience, we have a solution for you.

Pick up the phone and give us a call on 01276 534 680 and we’ll have a chat about your website.

We’re happy to give you our insights into what we can do now, in the medium term and for your long-term traffic strategy.

We’ll probably perform a website audit for you so that you can see what’s wrong and what needs to be done.

Then you can look forward to the peace of mind that your site really is in ship shape and you’re getting the traffic you’ve worked hard to earn.

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